A couple of hours, a local blog pushed a story that alleged that Kenya’s tax collector arm KRA had axed keying in of PAYE tax returns. The story, which has since been pulled generated an online buzz that prompted KRA to issue a statement refuting the claims.
Relief as KRA abolishes filing of PAYE tax returns returnshttps://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/37274-kra-abolishes-filing-paye-tax-returns
— michael mulinge (@mulinge_michael) February 25, 2019
According to the statement, the publisher of the story appeared to have misinterpreted KRA’s earlier communications. The agency had informed the public that it had enhanced the iTax portal with auto-populated fields for folks with employment as their primary source of income during the tax filing exercise.
The statement that was taken out of context was as follows:
iTax has been enhanced to have an auto-populated return of employment income. This has made it much easier, smoother and faster for employees whose source of income is only employment to file their returns. The employees are only required to input data on pension and annual relief. On receipt of the P9 certificates, the employees should simply proceed and file their returns accordingly.
KRA wishes to clarify that the statement does not mean that it has gotten rid of tax filings. You, as the esteemed and loyal taxpayer, should, therefore, disregard the wrong information and adhere to the agency’s norms and practices.
